SC junks bail plea of Coimbatore serial blast convicts

Calling the incident “atrocious”, the Supreme Court on Wednesday denied bail to some of the convicts in the 1998 Coimbatore serial bomb blast case who had cited long pendency of their appeal to secure reprieve. “All of us are unanimous that the bail cannot be granted…You may be inside for 25 years but 58 people lost their lives in this incident. That is good enough a reason for you to remain inside,” a bench, led by justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, said. The bench, which also included justices CT Ravikumar and Sudhanshu Dhulia, shot down the convicts’ arguments regarding segregation of their role in the incident, and fixed the appeal for a hearing in the second week of February 2024. “Look at what you have done. 58 people were killed. The nature of crime is an important factor when considering bail. There are concurrent findings by two courts of your guilt. It is an atrocious incident. Now, you are asking us to look at individual roles. Sorry, we cannot do that,” the bench told senior lawyers R Basant and Salman Khurshid, who appeared for the convicts.